Oxfam donates 2050 goslings to residents at Fomen township near Nanchong Baker Mayfield Browns Jersey , Sichuan Province, January 30, 2013. Photo: IC Discussion of a new law to specifically regulate overseas NGOs began in October last year. Legislative work began in December last year when the State Council submitted the draft law to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, for deliberation. Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for the NPC, said at a press conference that the NPC Standing Committee deliberated the draft law during the two sessions. The draft law Baker Mayfield Kids Jersey , if passed, would lead to overseas NGOs being managed in a quite different way from mainland NGOs.
Zhang Zhiru, founder of the Shenzhen Chunfeng Labor Dispute Service Center, recently laid off all of his five employees due to a shortage of funding.
From the start of this year, his organization decided to stop receiving funds from the US-based International Labor Rights Forum(ILRF).
As a grass-roots organization which has no other stable source of income, that decision was hard to make. Chunfeng started receiving funding from the ILRF in 2007, and used to get 300 Baker Mayfield Youth Jersey ,000-400,000 yuan ($48,090-64,200) every year to provide legal and organizational support to factory workers in their disputes with employers in the prosperous Pearl River Delta.
Zhang said he started to consider refusing overseas funds last August, when local police in Shenzhen started investigating Chunfeng. "They said that since Chunfeng receives overseas funding, our objectives are suspicious," Zhang told the Global Times. To avoid trouble Baker Mayfield Womens Jersey , he decided to stop receiving funds from overseas altogether, including from the China Labour Bulletin, an NGO based in Hong Kong.
With no alternative sources of funding to cover the loss, Zhang was forced to move the NGO out of the rented office it had occupied and asked the five employees to leave.
A source of concern
Zhang's experience highlights the dilemma facing a lot of grass-roots organizations in China that receive funding from overseas, at a time when the Chinese government is trying to tighten its management of overseas NGOs operating in Chinese mainland.
Incomplete statistics show that more than 1,000 overseas non-governmental organizations are currently operating in the Chinese mainland, conducting up to 6 Authentic Baker Mayfield Jersey ,000 programs and cooperating with local Chinese organizations and activists, according the People's Congress of China, the official magazine of the National People's Congress(NPC).
They provide hundreds of millions of dollars every year to programs related to poverty alleviation, assisting disabled people, environmental protection, healthcare and education.
Overseas NGOs bring in international funds and sophisticated technologies, however Baker Mayfield Jersey , at the same time, concerns have been growing that some overseas NGOs may attempt to influence China's politics through exerting pressure in areas such as human rights.
Wang Cunkui, a professor with the People's Public Security University of China, who has researched the history and activities of overseas NGOs in China, has openly criticized some overseas NGOs for ideological permeation using cultural exchanges and education initiatives to foster "Western agents" and political opposition in China and for fanning up discontent towards the authorities in the name of protecting human rights.
In June last year, an official document published by a township in Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, showed that the National Security Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China had initiated a nation-wide census of foreign-funded NGOs in Chinese mainland, which is seen as a sign of the rising suspicion of organization with links overseas.
However, China currently has no specific laws concerning the management of overseas NGOs, though individual articles in a number of laws and government regulations concern the management of overseas NGOs.
There is only one law in China - the Law on Donations for Public Welfare - that is related to the activities of overseas NGOs. Other regulations, like the Interim Provisions for the Administration of Foreign Chambers of Commerce in China, and the Regulation on Foundation Administration, which has provisions on the management of overseas foundations#7# also cover some elements of the activities of overseas NGOs.
Without a systematic legal framework, many of the activities of NGOs fall into a legal grey area and create ambiguity in law enforcement.
NGO No-nos
Discussion of a new law to specifically regulate overseas NGOs began in October last year after the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Party Congress ordered the authorities to better administer overseas NGOs and supervise their activities.
The legislative work began in December last year when the State Council submitted the draft law to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, for deliberation.
Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for the NPC, said the NPC Standing Committee deliberated the draft law, but didn't give any further information.
Observers have noticed that the draft law#8# if passed, would lead to overseas NGOs being managed in a quite different way from domestic NGOs.
For example under the draft law, overseas NGOs would be required to register with the police, instead of the Ministry of Civil Affairs as domestic NGOs do.
In fact the law was drafted jointly by the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and was approved by the State Council, which then submitted it to the NPC.